Anyone with an arrest warrant for failing to pay fines or failure to appear in Little Rock Criminal Court can rectify the issue in January without being arrested or facing additional fees, officials announced Monday.
The opportunity is afforded through the Little Rock Criminal Court’s amnesty program. Violators with past due fines and court costs or failure-to-appear warrants can report to the District Court building at 600 W. Markham St. between 8 a.m. and 8:45 a.m. any Friday in January to resolve the issue without being arrested.
Those who take advantage of the program will have their outstanding warrants recalled with no additional fines, costs or penalties added to the balance, said Ben Thielemier, communications and marketing manager for Little Rock.
State law allows for the fines to be taken out of an offender’s income tax refund, but if violators participate in the amnesty program, they will avoid having their fees seized from any refund they may be owed.
“The Little Rock District Court is serious about enforcing penalties and fines levied by the court,” said Judge Alice Lightle in a news release.“This amnesty program is an effort to get more violators to complete the obligations of their sentences, including paying fines and court costs as well as clearing failure-to-appear warrants.”
The Criminal Court didn’t host an amnesty program last year, but a similar program put on before had just 14 participants, Thielemier said.
“We hope our publicity efforts will increase that number with this program,” he said in an email Monday.
Anyone with questions about the program can call the court’s senior probation officer, Natalie Short, at (501) 371-4573.
Arkansas, Pages 10 on 12/17/2013